The LA City Council and Mayor Karen Bass’ latest brainstorm – slapping property owners with a roughly 120% hike in the streetlight assessment fee (as high as $1,500+ for an apartment complex) – is peak government stupidity.
Instead of stopping the thieves who have turned copper wire theft into a thriving local industry, LA City Hall has decided those responsible are the homeowners who keep paying taxes and somehow expecting streets to stay lit.
Copper theft has surged a reported 1,200% in the last decade, creating a backlog of over 32,000 repair requests and outages, each of which can drag on for a year or more.
Los Angeles’ Bureau of Street Lighting has been starved of meaningful funding since the 1990s, staffing is thin, and crews waste time navigating the same recurring crime scenes – often complicated by encampments and general disorder.
A specialized LAPD task force on copper theft was quietly disbanded after modest results. Penalties for theft remain laughably weak, scrap yards keep buying “hot”metal with minimal scrutiny, and the whole cycle spins on, while officials shrug and reach for their calculators to propose new fees.
It’s outrageous that law-abiding property owners are being billed for such a basic public safety failure.
Keeping streets illuminated helps deter crime and prevent accidents. It’s basic government work, funded by taxes Angelinos already pay.
Shifting the cost of repeated theft onto residents isn’t leadership. It’s outsourcing accountability. Criminals steal with impunity; residents get the invoice.
Mayor Bass has a grand plan: Convert up to 60,000 city streetlights to solar-powered units over the next couple of years. No more copper wiring at the base means thieves will have to find another hobby, City Hall officials promise.
The city seeks to expand an existing contract with the LA Department of Water and Power – you know, the people who left the reservoir empty – rather than running a fully competitive bidding process.
The sales pitch claims solar lights will be cheaper and easier to maintain in the long run.
But while traditional wired lights suffer from theft-driven repairs, at least the failures are usually straightforward: replace bulbs, rewire, done.
Solar units bring their own headaches: solar panels that can crack or get dirty (or stolen); power controllers that often fail; and batteries that may need replacement every five to 10 years, depending on the model and on LA’s weather.
Those battery replacement swaps aren’t cheap, and in a city notorious for deferred maintenance, one wonders how eagerly crews will climb poles to service scattered solar fixtures across 470 square miles.
Real-world experience in other cities shows that battery life and performance can vary, meaning that the city may have to add new forms of maintenance.
The promised energy savings look good on paper, but will solar truly pay for itself before the next round of “emergency” funding requests? Or will Angelenos end up subsidizing both the original copper chaos and a fleet of high-tech lights whose batteries die right on schedule?
At least voters will have a say. Under Proposition 218 of 1996, fee increases have to be approved by a majority of the affected property owners. Ballots are on the way.
Instead of letting the city get away with negligence, voters should demand the city do its job.
The voters should demand real enforcement against theft rings; stricter copper scrap dealer regulations; and toughter accountability. There is no reason a major city can’t keep its lights on without new tax assessments or dubious tech gambles.
Until leaders prioritize stopping the criminals over billing the victims, the streets of LA will stay dark.
Richie Greenberg is a political commentator based in San Francisco.
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